Wednesday, June 03, 2009

A strange thing about American society is that gay culture and homoeroticism are the reservoirs of actual aesthetic beauty. When people talk about homoerotic pictures, movies, they're often referring to a kind of subtle sexiness, as opposed to the outright sexualness that you find in heterosexual porn; or indeed the type of frank sexual portrayals that are found in non-porn depictions of women. Possibly because gay culture is hidden still and possibly because capitalism and marketing haven't found a way to exploit it yet, there's still a sense that what's out there is closer to uncomplicated aesthetic beauty. This same sort of beauty could be applied to women and to heterosexual situations, but we've pretty much ruined our ability to honestly portray it. Everything has been subordinated to pornography, which although attractive doesn't really give a damn about beauty or sensitive portrayals. Don't get me wrong, I like porn as much as the next guy, but I don't watch it expecting to find the sort of aesthetic satisfaction that often accompanies homoerotic portrayals.

I belong, I guess, to the generation to whom porn became massively available via the internet, and so did not have the same stigma as it once had. Some people call this the post-censorship generation. I can see the benefits from total sexual liberation involving making hardcore pornography available without fuss or muss, but I can also see that after you've made this available there are still things that need work. Raising female beauty above pure fucking and pussy shots is one of them. Now, I'm sure that many makeup artists who work in porn will vigorously oppose this opinion about porn actresses, but.. A reconstruction of the idea of female beauty is needed. Gay boys are having all the fun; it should be expanded to include everyone else.